The Life and Lies of Tom Marvolo Riddle
by sonnet18s
Summary: A short one shot showing the life of Tom Riddle, the child who would later be known as Lord voldemort.


_**Authors Note: **_

_**Now, this is my first story, but I've been reading fanfictions, especially in the Naruto, Frozen, and Harry Potter, sections for a few years now. **_

_**I winded up saying, 'how hard can it be to write a fanfic?' **_

_**This actually started with an experiment, and strangely enough, a philosophical debate around whether killing in order to establish peace is wrong. An example is, if you had the choice to kill Adolf Hitlers mom, before she could give birth to Adolf Hitler, would you do it? It would save six million lives, but Adolf Hitlers mom, at that point, was innocent of any crimes, so it winds up bringing us to the idea of the greater good. **_

_**One of the kids I was discussing this with told me that, and I quote, "You can't kill for peace, any more than you can fuck for virginity." **_

_**Anyhow, before I go on a tangent, I winded up reading a fanfic that evening. One that seemed especially centered around bashing Dumbledore for being to caught up in the 'greater good,' and trying to sacrifice Harry. **_

_**This brings us back to the discussion with killing Adolf's mom, before she could give birth to Adolf Hitler. In that case, by killing Adolf's mom, you can save six million jews, from dying to a madman. In this case, the case of the story, Harry's sacrifice would save the entirety of the wizarding world from Voldemort (cue madman.) **_

_**At this point, to me at least, right and wrong all blurs into a matter of perspective. This brings me to yet another quote, "There is no black and white. Not even shades of grey. All is a matter perspective."**_

_** Those who argue that Dumbledore should have put his foot down a lot earlier, not let death eaters bribe their way out of Azkaban, etc. Please not that Magical U.K. is a democracy/bureaucracy. Power is passed down in families, as can be seen in pure bloods, and they come together to form Wizenganmont, the wizarding version of parliament. **_

_**The suggestions that Dumbledore could have done something is a delusion. The majority votes count, and the fact that the majority was greedy and accepted bribes is a fault that all democracies share. **_

_**The alternative is a dictatorship with Dumbledore as the dictator, however, is even worse. Anyhow, I am merely stating that there will be no bashing in any of my stories. Ever. **_

_**Characters will never be one dimensional. If it seems like I am bashing them, then I assure you, in the next chapter, I'll include an excerpt that explains there point of view and motives. **_

_**Now, on with the story. **_

_**Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter **_

_**Chapter 1: The Life and Lies of**_

**_Voldemort, _**was known as, perhaps, the greatest dark wizards of all time. To the wizarding world at large, he seemed to have popped out of the ground with the sole intention of using his magic to genocide an innocent race, the muggle (non magical human being), and all wizards and witches who were not pure of blood.

The knowledge his followers had of him was hardly any greater than that of the average wizard. Indeed, the only fact that made them follow him was his accomplishments, which can be seen in what he was doing and succeeding at doing, his obvious power, but there was a fact that alone commanded him more respect than all else.

He was the heir of Salazar Arcturus Slytherin.

Salazar Slytherin was as big a mystery as his heir was. Perhaps more so, given that he lived a couple thousand years ago.

What was known was three crucial facts.

1) It is known that he, along with Godric Gryfindor, Helga Hufflepuff, and Rowena Ravenclaw, created the first wizarding school in history, Hogwarts. Together the four of them created the idea of a standard wizarding education system that would be focused on producing well rounded wizards and witches, upon which the would eventually specialize in one field.

2) It is known that Salazar was put at odds with the other founders following the schools founding, over the problem of who to admit access to the school. Godric and Helga was for accepting all who wish to learn into the school, while Rowena was neutral. Salazar on the other hand, wanted to limit access to those of pure blood, meaning only those with wizards and witches for parents should have access. This idology spread among his house rather quickly, and would evolve into the pure blood supermasist movement.

3) He was a parselmouth, or could speak to snakes. This was a trait that went down the Slytherin family line.

What Voldemort's followers knew about him that the average wizard didn't was that he could speak to snakes, meaning he was the heir of Slytherin. This legitimized his power as there leader.

The logic was simple. The following, if organized as a flowchart, could be used to show there line of thought:

1) Salazar Slytherin could speak to snakes.

2) There ancestors and families had taken vows to be loyal to Salazar Slytherin and his family.

3) Voldemort can speak to snakes.

4) If Voldemort could speak to snakes, then he must be the heir of Slytherin.

5) If Voldemort was the heir to Slytherin, then they must be loyal to him.

Simple enough and easy to follow.

The logic, with the facts given, were solid. The only problem with it was that Voldemort was not actually a pure blood.

Voldemort was the son of Merope Gaunt, a weak witch that happened to be descended from Salazar, and a wealthy muggle called Tom Riddle Sr.

His father, who was seduced by his mother by means of a love potion. Once she got pregnant, she believed that Riddle Sr. might have either fallen in love with her on his own, or at least stay for the baby's sake.

She was wrong on both counts.

The minute Riddle Sr. got over his hangover, he bolted and disappeared, leaving Merope pregnant and without a means to provide for herself or the baby when it was born.

The day she would give birth came on December 31, 1926. Tom Marvolo Riddle Jr. was born at Wool's Orphanage, London. Merope Gaunt perished following childbirth.

Tom grew up an orphan and an outcast.

Franklin Rooselvelt had once said, "To nurture a mans intelligence, but not his morals is to create a smart monster,"

It was never truer in this case.

To the world at large, Tom appeared to be an exceedingly handsome and polite child. In reality, however, Tom was cruel, arrogant, sadistic, manipulative, psychopathic and megalomaniacal.

On his eleventh birthday, Albus Dumbledore brought Tom his Hogwarts letter, and for the first time ever, Tom felt fear. Ever since he first discovered his 'power', he had been using it to get his way. It might have made him an outcast, but it was what made him special. Different from the plebeians that surrounded him.

He had taken his advantage for granted. Now, he had lost it.

If anything, he was at a disadvantage. He was going to school as a muggleborn with finance. His sources of information were severely limited. He had limited money. Most of the pure blood and half blood children were bound to have at least some practice in using magic.

Riddle had nothing.

That didn't stop him.

Tom was nothing if not determined, on top of being a genius. His only real fear was that someone would finally beat him at something, idiocy not counting. This fear stayed with him all his life.

So, Tom excelled. He continued working, searching for clues as to his parentage while he was at it. At first he believed it was his father that was wizard. After all, if it was his mother she wouldn't die, right?

Turns out he was wrong, as he discovered later on.

During his Hogwarts years, there were two major events that dictated the direction that Toms life went.

1) He discovered he was a decendent of Salazar Slytherin. Choosing to continue his ancestors work, he searched for the Chamber of Secrets in order to purge the school. After the death of one muggle born, called Myrtle, the school was on the verge of closing, when Tom decided to temporarily close the chamber.

2) After the discovery that his mother was a witch, he grew a fear of death, comparing to his fear of being beaten. In order to 'cheat' death, he started researching into immortality. Tom knew from the start that true immortality was impossible, but conditional immortality was not.

Vampires, for example, were not able to die rom old age, but they could be killed in any other way, or exposure to sun light.

The conditional immortality that Tom had found was something called hocruxes. It basically involved murdering someone in order to rip up your soul, and then put said soul into an object. This way, if he were to 'die', his hocrux would stop his soul from departing the realm of the living.

An arguably minor event would be the fact that he became a perfect at his fifth year at Hogwarts, and the Head Boy at the start of his seventh year.

After his graduation, he shortly worked as an employee at Borgin & Burkes, which in actuality, was an opportunity for him to gather items serve as his hocruxes. **  
**

Following this, he went aboard and traveled the world to search for rare and arcane forms of magic.

He returned to the UK in the 1970's, and took advantage of the wizarding worlds greatest weakness, there persecution of dark creatures such as vampires, werewolves, giants, etc. with the pure bloods leading them.

It was nine years later, when Voldemort reached the height of his power, when words of a prophecy reached him by means of his loyal death eater Severus Tobias Snape.

"_The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches…Born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies…And the Dark Lord will mark him as equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not…"_

This was only the first half of the prophecy and Voldemort couldn't exactly waltz into the the Department of Mysteries in the Ministry of Magic to listen to the other half.

It didn't matter any way. The prophecy presented the two things that Voldemort ever feared. The first was someone who could defeat him, and the other was the chance at death.

"_The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches," _no he would not allow it to happen. So, Voldemort set out to look for his potential vanquisher and found the two potential candidates.

One Harry Potter and Neville Longbottom. Both were hidden under a Fidelus charm.

The Fideulus charm was derived from the latin word fidel, which meant trust. The charm basically needed you to place your trust in another person to keep your location secret. so long as that person, or secret keeper, did not speak, the location would be hidden.

It was too bad that the Potters entrusted there location to one of his spies, Peter Pettigrew.

It was on Halloween eve, on 1981 when he went to initially confront the Potters and take out the first candidate for the prophecy.

But he should have known that not all that glitters is gold...

That was the day that Voldemort fell for the first time, leaving Harry Potter with a peculiar scar in the shape of a lightning bolt.


End file.
